We investigated the mechanisms of vowel epenthesis in consonant clusters using the WAVE system (NDI Corp.). Tongue tip movements were measured during the articulation of native and non-native consonant clusters in English. The subjects were three English speakers (2 males and 1 female). The speech samples were 3 words: blat, bnat, btat. In these words, consonant cluster /bl/ is native in Englis...

This study examines a salient intrasyllabic phonological unit in Korean, the body-coda unit, its role in literacy skills in Korean, and a possible source of the salience of body-coda units in the spoken language. Data were collected from Korean-speaking, monolingual beginning readers (41 kindergarteners, 40 first graders). The results indicate that body-coda boundary (e.g., ca-t) is more salien...

Real-time MRI has become an increasingly useful tool in articulatory studies, especially in examining posterior regions of the vocal tract. Previous work on Brazilian Portugese has shown the emergence of coda consonants following word-final nasal vowels, though this has been limited to the discussion of front vowels and coda emergence in anterior regions of the vocal tract. We present rt-MRI ev...

A familiar phonotactic constraint in Arabic limits monosyllabic words to CVVC and CVCC syllable type, where VV and CC are long segmentso In this study, we are interested in learning, first, whether vowel length difference serves as a perceptual cue of the length difference between short (single) and long (geminate) consonantso Second, if consonant length difference cues vowel length differenceo...

When college students pronounce nonwords, their vowel pronunciations may be affected not only by the consonant that follows the vowel, the coda, but also by the preceding consonant, the onset (Treiman, Kessler, & Bick, 2003). We presented the nonwords used by Treiman et al. to a total of 94 first graders, third graders, fifth graders, and high school students to determine when these context inf...

When college students pronounce nonwords, their vowel pronunciations may be affected not only by the consonant that follows the vowel, the coda, but also by the preceding consonant, the onset. We presented the nonwords used by Treiman and colleagues in their 2003 study to a total of 94 first graders, third graders, fifth graders, and high school students to determine when these context influenc...

In Neapolitan Italian, the LH nuclear accent rise is later in questions (L*+H) than in statements (L+H*). Furthermore, the H target is later in closed syllables than in open (penultimate) syllables, in both intonation modalities. As a consequence, the H target is differently located in lexical minimal pairs contrasting in consonantal length and syllable structure, such as nonno /'nnno/ ‘grandf...

Western Nicaragua is an immensely understudied region, and it also represents one of the most advanced coda /s/-weakening dialects of Spanish. Coda /s/ is reduced nearly categorically before a following consonant, vowel, or pause, e.g. cesta ‘basket’ becomes [sehta], más ajo ‘more garlic’ becomes [mah aho], and misas ‘masses’ becomes [misa], respectively. These reductions result in a “breathy S...